The guitarist has spoken out over accusations his band ripped off a Spirit track called 'Taurus'

Jimmy Page has called claims that Led Zeppelin plagiarised ‘Stairway To Heaven’ from a band called Spirit, “ridiculous”.

A lawyer called Francis Malofiy recently expressed a desire to seek a copyright infringement lawsuit and block the forthcoming re-release of ‘Led Zeppelin IV’, stating that his client – the late Randy California, who played guitar in Spirit – should be given a writing credit on the track ‘Stairway To Heaven’ as it resembles Spirit’s 1968 song ‘Taurus’. The two bands toured together in 1968 and 1969.

Asked about the claims by France’s Liberation paper, via Bloomberg Businessweek, Page responded: “That’s ridiculous. I have no further comment on the subject.”

“The idea behind this is to make sure that Randy California is given a writing credit on ‘Stairway to Heaven’,'” said Malofiy to Bloomberg Businessweek. “Its been a long time coming.” However, Malofiy has now been accused by a judge of behaving in a ‘unprofessional’ and ‘offensive’ way in another suit.

Whilst representing a songwriter called Dan Marino, Malofiy accused Usher and 19 other defendants of copyright infringement regarding the song ‘Bad Girl’, which Marino claimed he wrote. Pennsylvania federal Judge Paul Diamond has now stated that the lawyer misled Marino’s former songwriting partner William Guice into making him think he was a witness and not a defendant and, reports Rolling Stone “persuaded Guice to sign an affidavit admitting to elements of the Plaintiff’s complaint without representation from a lawyer.”

Led Zeppelin will reissue their first three albums next month. Meanwhile, Jimmy Page has recently said that he is ‘fed up’ with Robert Plant for delaying Led Zeppelin reunion plans. The band last played together in December 2007 at London’s O2 Arena, but singer Robert Plant has ruled out the possibility of a follow-up concert any time soon.